Telescopes

[Garthwh]

I think that because already we can tell planets exist around other planets and know a bit about them, this could be implemented in the game. I was always annoyed at MOO when I had to judge by planet color what planets there were, and then getting there and seeing no planets. I think any astronomic judgment should be inaccurate, but should at least provide a hint of the planets around a star. This obviously should wait until a later release, but if anyone else thinks this is cool it would be fun to do.

[Geoff the Medio]

We'll probably keep the uncertainty about planets in systems that a player hasn't adequate detection ability to see into, in order to keep the mystery and reveal nature of exploration intact. However, if you have sufficient detection on ships or planets you control, you can already see the planets in other systems that you haven't yet explored.

[Garthwh]

Cool! That's exactly what I was trying to say. Thanks.

[IConrad]

We'll probably keep the uncertainty about planets in systems that a player hasn't adequate detection ability to see into, in order to keep the mystery and reveal nature of exploration intact. However, if you have sufficient detection on ships or planets you control, you can already see the planets in other systems that you haven't yet explored.

It's worth noting that if you can compare the same object which is very far away from two points which are also very far away from one another, the effect is much more significant than if you merely had a lens at one location which was twice as large.

I once had a discussion with a fellow transhumanist who happens to be an astronomy buff, and we figured out that if you were to create a Dyson Sphere the size of Jupiter's orbit around the Sun, and coated the surface with optics, you would be able to take 10 Megapixel images of individual planets on the opposite side of the galaxy.

Simply having observation satellites orbiting more than one planet, and synchronizing their inputs at one location, ought to be more than enough to make out individual planets in any stellar system less than 4 AU away. Easily. Having the same on more than one star-system would be... (realistically speaking) sufficient to make out individual stars in remote galaxies.